Socialize with me

Yep…totally forgot to tell my friend this for OVER two years!

Recently I was having lunch with an old friend of mine Noel and her kids. We’ve been friends for ten plus years but now that I live out in the “country,” it’s been a little more difficult to get together so I really cherish my time with her. I always say I have the best friends ever. Really. I could write about each of them every single day because they are all so wonderful, kind-hearted and thoughtful. Even the ones I’ve lost touch with or the friends who are no longer, I am grateful for every friend I’ve had because they have all brought something to my life!

While at lunch with Noel and her boys, we got to talking about our family, our marriages and life. You know…typical stuff you talk about when you are catching up with your girlfriend. She has such a good head on her shoulders. She is a good listener. Gives good advice. Tells a good story. Has a kind and generous heart and is just an all around good and Godly person. During lunch, she mentioned to me that she and her husband had this funny conversation in which she told her husband that if anything ever happened to him, she would probably never marry again. I found this funny because I’ve said the same thing to my husband. Are we the only ones who have had conversations like this before? lol We laughed so hard and both agreed that we would be happy raising our children and just being alone and never marrying again. Of course many years after we continued to mourn the loss of our husbands. 😉 In all seriousness though, this is a reality for many women and the thought of it ever happening to me makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little, because I am deliriously in love with my husband. We were just having a silly conversation at lunch.

Annnnyway, right in the middle of this silly conversation, I blurted out…”Oh em gee, I totally forgot to tell you/ask you something…will you be my back-up family?” Then I said, let me explain…

A few years ago, my husband and I did the awkward and difficult task of planning for the “what if’s” with a lawyer. Given my Breast Cancer history and just being total planners…we thought it would be good to make legal plans so that our kids would be taken care of should something happen to us. Lemme tell you…THAT is not a fun conversation to have. I cried the whole time well, because I’m emotional and a spaz, lol, but I knew it was a good thing for us to do. During this planning process we had to name the friends who we would want to take over raising our children if something should happen to me and my husband and of course, Lily’s biological father who lives in California. It was a hard decision to make even though I realize the chances of us both being gone at the same time are hopefully very slim and none, but none the less, we wanted to take it seriously. We love EVERYONE in our family of friends and would drop our kids on their doorsteps in 2.2 seconds so it was tough to just pick ONE person. One family. So we picked two. We picked one of Eric’s oldest and bestest friends Chris, who was his Best man and we also picked my friend Noel. She and I were pregnant at the same time over ten years ago, were neighbors for many years and we have had many loooong conversations about raising children.

But here’s the thing…I toooootally forgot to call and ask her if this was ok. Like, just plain ol’ forgot. For yeeeears. Then while we were having lunch the other day, talking about hypothetical stuff and all of a sudden I remembered. Of course she said yes and was totally flattered. She even sent me a thank you note a few days later.

A few days after that lunch my family and I were having dinner with some of our other friends Taylor and Glenn and I told them this funny Noel story and then we laughed at this thought…what if I had NEVER remembered and all of a sudden Noel got a knock at her door and there were Lily and Luna standing on her porch with suitcases?? Why this was so insanely funny to us I don’t know but it was.

Suffice it to say…Noel now knows of her duty as does Chris…both have accepted their responsibilities with bells on and I love them for it but here’s to hopefully never needing them anytime soon! 😉